Well, it is officially that time of year again; time to get your frog stick out of the back corner of your boat or garage.

A lot of guys will wait until the dead of summer before they start to throw their frogs. Well, I tell you what – if you love frog fishing you’re making a big mistake. I have some general rules I follow for when I like start throwing it, but really I have caught fish on this bait 10 months out of the year on Clear Lake and the Delta.

In spring as soon as water temps start hitting the high 50’s and can heat up to nearly 60’s in the day or just above, it’s time.

Time of Day: I usually let my own body tell me when to start throwing the frog. If I am wearing a sweatshirt and I can not stand to have it on anymore, it’s time. This usually comes around 12:00 or 1:00 in the afternoon in the early months of spring. Summer is a different story. When the water is already in the 60’s, throw it first thing in the morning. It can only get better as the day go on.

This last weekend at the Won Bass Pro Am on Clear Lake I used a frog as a search bait in pre fish. Not a lot of the fish were exploding on it just yet, but gave up their location so I could go back and get them later.
Location: For early year frog fish I like to start in quiet areas such as creeks, sloughs, corner pockets and points inside bigger coves. What I mean by ‘quiet area’ is an area where there is less water movement so the water will warm up quicker and stay warm longer throughout the day.

Umbrellas: I start by looking for “umbrellas”. This can mean a number of things: umbrellas can be patches of pollen, leaves, reed dead fall, trees, or shade. Anything which provided underwater shade for bass will work. You will not find much moss yet this time of year, which is what most people think of first when frog fishing, but don’t let that stop you.

Equipment: Before you go out and tie on a frog there are some factors to consider regarding your equipment. You need a very specific rod for froggin’. It needs to be a stout rod with a fast action tip somewhere in the range of 7′ to 7’6”. I prefer one right in the middle – about 7’3″ or so. I use a Powell rod that Gary Dobyns designed. I will probably break down and buy one of his own new Dobyns rods in a week or two.

Fishing Line: As far as fishing line goes, you need to use braid. I don’t go any lower than 65 lb. and will sometimes use 80 lb. Power Pro or the same in Suffix. These are my personal favorite braids.

You will need to winch these bass out. There are two ways to approach this: you can use the power of a 5-1 reel ratio or the speed of a 7-1. I prefer the water ski method of landing frog fish so I lean towards the 7-1 ratio. You want a reel with a big spool that can hold a lot of line – some of the bigger braids are big in diameter and will fill up a spool rather quickly.

Setting the hook: I have been asked a lot what I think is the best hook set is for a frog bite, and have heard a lot of different answers to this question. Unfortunately I do not have a dead-set-steady real answer to this question – I do have some general guidelines however.

Most blow ups are not the same. There will be days when for some reason all the fish strike the same and this will really help with each hook set. But most will vary slightly.

Sometimes the fish will come up behind the frog, sometimes from either side; sometimes the front and some of the most subtle strikes will be from right underneath the lure.

If you lose sight of your lure, swing for the fence – and I mean it give it the old Made-For-TV, Roland-Marten-Rip-Their- Face-Off hook set – do not mess around.

This will do two things: 1) it will set the hook 2) it will begin your retrieve. Yes it will sometimes launch the fish up out on to the surface of the water away from all those snags, and this will put you at an advantage before the fish reburies itself in the cover.

Some people say wait – count to 1, to 2, to 3. I say every fish is going to be different and there are no rules as far as the hook set except one: if you get too excited you will lose more fish. Learn to relax when you see the fish come up and explode.

Be very aware of the surroundings. I become very sensitive to noises and movements when I am frog fishing for bass. A lot of times I see when I am going to get bit before it happens, or in those cases when I am rattling off to my fishing buddy I hear a strike and set the hook without ever seeing it. I think it is just a feel thing and really wish I had a better answer.

Color: How do you decide on the color? I like to keep things simple. Black, white, green, black with red head, and black with yellow head for the Delta and Clear Lake. I choose color depending on light levels. I am not a huge believer in color so much as making sure I have a good frog I believe in. 9 times out of ten I throw River2Sea frogs or Spro Frogs. My hook up ratio went up greatly when these frogs came out. You can improve some of the old favorites with a new Gamakatsu wider gap frog hook – the new Bobby Barrick frogs come with them as well. I just feel that the bodies on the Spro and River2Sea frogs are second to none.

A lot of people use the new soft plastic frogs. I just never got that into them. I do have a couple uses for them – they work well on day when fish do not want to commit, and you can let them sink and get clobbered, or as a follow up bait for open water followers that do not want to break the surface. I will use these baits on a big 6 ought weighted Falcon hook.

Retrieve: In general, a good steady cadence will work 80, 90 percent of the time, but there are days when you may need to slow down or speed it up a tad. This will have to be trial and error thing. A lot of time when the fish do not want to commit, I will speed it up before I slow it down; it gives them less time to think. I can guarantee that bass can out-swim your fastest retrieve. The only time I will not do this is when a fish will not be able to physically get through the cover before my frog is 2 feet away. I personally think a bass has a canny way of calculating their strike, and are going to come up before your lure hits that spot – meaning that if your lure is consistently traveling at say 2 feet per second then that bass is also taking that into consideration as it strikes. Give it a shot. You will be surprised, I’m sure of it.

I hope this article got you even a 10th exited as I am about fishing the frog; it is hands down my favorite way to catch a bass.

Please e-mail me if you have any questions regarding tackle set up, lure choice, etc.

Well, it’s that time of year again. The fish are moving up and are starting to cruise the shallows. I have already seen a couple of bed fish, and have seen some pretty aggressive males. With the full moon this week, there should be a whole wave of new fish coming up and starting their migrations into the spawning areas. With this in mind, I have started to put together a bed bait box, and I thought I would share my thoughts.

Like everything else, I try to keep my approach simple. But unlike other fishing techniques I think it is more important to keep your gear ready at a split second’s notice during the spring time. I usually have 3-4 rods rigged up on the deck of my boat for fishing beds. All bass on beds act differently. I like to move in very slowly, and watch the fish long before I even think about casting. There are a handful of things I am looking for:

A flare of the gills, a dash towards the bait, actual contact with the bait, picking up of the bait, versus complete disinterest in the bait – this will help you determine whether or not to pursue the fish.

The sweet spot: most all beds have one small spot that really pisses the fish off pretty badly. It can be as big as a couple of feet, or as small as a couple of inches. Most of the time, this is going to be somewhere near where the fish return and centers on the bed, and the most likely place for a strike.

Entrance & exit: most fish will enter and exit from specific spots on a bed. First you want to determine these spots, and make sure you don’t block their cruising areas if they do get worked up and leave the bed.
Location: This will determine how you set up an approach to fishing a particular bed.

Location of the sun: Try and keep the sun at your back, but at the same time make sure not to cast a shadow over the bed. This puts you more in the fish’s blind spot.

Stealth: be a quiet as possible when stalking bedding fish. Keep your trolling motor use to a minimum. Do everything you can to not create a trolling motor wash towards the bed. And in shallow water, use a push pole if you can.

Slow down: I know it’s hard to do when you spot some of the big fish you see on beds, but if you are not patient, most of the time the fish will win.

Baits: One of my favorite baits without a doubt is the Matt Lures Bluegill. I like to start with this bait to establish my relationship with the fish. Another bait that I have already used on some bed fish and have already gotten a great response from is the River2Sea Nest Raider.

I’ll swim the bigger baits through the area and see what kind of reaction I get. If the fish are super hot, sometimes you’ll catch them right off the bat. Most of the time, though, this is not the case. This is the reason I like to keep those rods on the deck, rigged and ready to go. This lets me get another bait in the water in that critical moment, when a fish may be worked up. A lot of time you will have to play around with different baits, to see what really makes them mad. Some of my secondary baits include a jig, a Huddleston Huddlebug crawdad, a Senko, and sometime even a small worm or drop shot. I like to use big stout hooks with all of my bed baits. Because you usually only get one chance at a hook set.

Drive the hook home pretty hard, and make sure you always have the net ready. These bass are usually pretty unhappy.

I really like bed fishing because it can be such a head game between you and the bass.

There are tons of different fishing techniques out there. How the heck do you learn all of them to become a better angler? Here’s one trick that I have learned.

About ten years ago I realized I had all these different baits that I enjoyed using, but if you asked me my favorites, or more importantly, what I had the most confidence in, I was stumped. I decided I needed to do something. So, you know how the Chinese have the different animals representing different years? Well I took that idea and added a fisherman’s twist. For me, it was now a different bait for each year. From that point on I picked a new bait at the beginning of each year and focused on learning it throughout the year.  I started off pretty dedicated. This was before I was fishing tournaments, so I was pretty literal, and I used that same bait more or less all the time. And for those of you who do not tournament fish, I recommend this to learn the intricacies of a single lure type.

My first year, I chose the crankbait. That year, that was pretty much all I fished. And by the end of the year, I sure knew a lot more about crankbait fishing. And better yet, I had a handful of baits that I had a huge amount of confidence in that I still carry with me today.

The next year was the year of the jig. Let’s just say, the next TWO years was the year of the jig. That’s how much I liked it. Today, you are going to find a jig rod on the deck of my boat pretty much all the time.

The year of the frog – sometimes baits are more season specific, and you’ll only be able to use them for a handful of months. I started that summer off with a bang. I went out on a guided trip on the Delta with Gary Dobyns, and got the low-down on frog fishing. That day I realized that Gary had probably forgotten more about frog fishing than I ever knew in the first place. These seasonal baits can be great because you can fish them really hard for a short period of time while the bite is phenomenal. This can build your confidence in a new bait really fast. But because of this, you may end up needing to spend a couple of years honing your skills during the on season. You can take advantage of this by rotating in a more fitting seasonal bait in the other months.

As I started tournament fishing, I was not able to intently focus on one bait as much any more, at least during competitions. But I still use my personal fishing time to focus in and learn new baits, and I still keep that one bait on my deck staring at me, and I use it any chance I get.

By intentionally limiting your lure choices like this, you’ll learn how a lot of techniques have similar uses, and over time realize the subtle differences as to when one might be slightly better than the other.

This has helped me a lot over the years, especially for learning techniques that I did not necessarily originally favor, such as the drop shot. Originally, I thought this was only a finesse fishing technique, but throughout my drop shot year  I adapted it in many new and different ways. And to this day some of my biggest fish on Clear Lake have been caught on my power drop shot.

So now as I get to the end of a couple of satisfying years getting to know the swimbait, I am gearing up for  new things for 2008. I have already started building up the arsenal, and I can now say that I am truly looking forward to the Year of the Rat.

     

The Falcon Hook & Screw Lock Hook
The most basic way to fish these baits, this method makes more of a shallow water rig, usually 1/16 oz. to 1/4 oz. This is a great rig for running these baits slow, steady, and fast, depending on weight size. Great for heavy cover.

Adding a Stinger – 2 techniques
This is more of an open-water tactic for short striking fish. Starting with the rig shown above:

#1 – The Split Ring Setup
Start with a strong split ring with an inside diameter smaller than the eye of the hook and a good quality sharp treble. Mount the split ring around the shaft of the hook between the lead and the eye. This will lock your stinger hook in place and prevent it from sliding up your line.

#2 – Drop Shot Type Setup
Starting with a Palomar knot through your main hook leaving at least 6” of line. Next feed the line back through the eye towards the bottom. Now tie the treble onto the tag line with you favorite knot , making sure to leave no more than 2” or so of line between knots after cinching up. This may take a few tries before you get the right length between the two. Now you’re ready to hook your stinger anywhere on the bait – I usually hook it off the bottom.

Chatter Bait Jig Head
As if these baits don’t have enough action to them already. . Well who cares, you can give them even more. Strip the skirt off your favorite chatter bait and peg your favorite Basstrix style bait on to it. I usually slice the nose open a little and bury the weight and all then glue it back shut with some Mend It or Super Glue.

Hornet Head Rigging
Mixing up with another bait made famous by Aaron Martins. This rig is great for suspended fish. I usually use the smaller 4” Basstrix with this method. This is pretty self explanatory but a very effective technique.

Flippin’ Rig
So get yourself a big old #4 or #5 flippin’ tube hook with the weight attached to the eye. Shove the weight into the nose and rig up the hook through your bait. I like to next take a glass rattle and shove it up the backside of the bait for some extra sound as the baits drops down into cover. I left the weight of the hook exposed in the photo so you could see the set up.

Blade Runner Tackle Head
This head is made by Blade Runner Tackle, out of Sacramento, Ca. It was specifically designed for this bait, and has been a West Coast secret for years. They are made all the way up to more than 1 oz. This is a very versatile set up. You can fish it shallow, deep, through cover, suspended – whatever. Just hang on, because the fish hit this one hard.

Swimbait Head
Going old school with this one. With a head from Revenge Bait Company, yet another West Coast, Bay Area company, this is another simple setup. You can swim it or jig it on the bottom, from 1 foot to eighty feet – just fish it wherever the fish are.

The Chaser Rig aka “The Predator & Prey Rig”
This is one of my favorites, using two Basstrix products at once. Using a predatory color bait (bass, blue gill, etc.) with a minnow flavored drop shot bait. Thread your line through the drop shot bait from nose to tail. I keep a large sewing needle on my boat for this purpose. Next, tie it up to your main bait hook. I fish this setup extra erratic to make it look like the bass or bluegill is chasing the minnow. I sometimes run the minnow up to a foot up my line, but most of the time, let it settle at the nose of my main bait.

Finesse West Coast Style – Split Shot or Carolina Rig
Once again start with the smaller 4” baits with a #3 or #4 weightless wide gap hook, and a large split-shot weight, 3/8 to 1/2 oz. This can be also be set up as a Carolina rig, with your weight wherever you like to fish it. By using the weightless hook, you’re actually letting your bait roll over and flip, simulating a dying shad. This is a great setup when the water gets cold as there is a shad die off. It is very important with this technique to try to match the hatch.
I have a couple of others that I am just not ready to share yet but who knows – keep checking into the site and I may just let a few more cats out of the bag. Here are some of the baits used for these techniques. From the top down:

• 6” Lucky Strike
• 5.5” Lucky Strike
• 6” Basstrix
• 5” Basstrix
• 5” Money Minnow
• 5” Phantom Shad
• 4.5” Maverick Bait Company Shad